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Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

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Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#381

If you're interested in adjusting your seafood eating habits towards eating more sustainable seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a guide on which seafood (based on species and location/method of catch) is most sustainable, somewhat sustainable, and not sustainable. My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up and put in your wallet: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recom…

I got to see Alton Brown talk about sustainable seafood there! His message was pretty much "Eat calamari, eat it a lot."

Which sucks, because it is one of the few seafood's that I actually dislike. I don't like certain oily fish, and I don't like calamari other than that I like pretty much every seafood. I spearfish where I live which I like because I can only take what I am going to eat, I don't injure any other fish like pole and net fishing does and everything I take is of legal size. It allows me to be more selective of what I take. I tend to target, hogfish, mangrove / mutton snapper and lionfish as the reproduce fast and are able to withstand the pressure of fishing. While it is legal during certain times, whee I live, to take grouper, tuna and permit, I tend to avoid taking them as they are more susceptible to fishing pressure.

I have spearfished for over 30 years and it is astonishing how much the fish population has declined even in my lifetime.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#382

Everyone please stop blaming coral bleaching on climate change. Nitrogen run-off from farming is the main cause. We need to reduce nitrogen enrichment in farming, which will lead to lower yields and lower profits (or, more likely, higher prices). But blaming climate change here is an egregious example of green washing which will prevent or delay resolving the real issue. Stop it. Please. "Anthropogenic nutrient enric…

I have tried to explain this here, but they don't want to hear it, if it does not put climate change as the #1 reason. My daughter is in coral research, N:P is the poison, heat increases it's potency, without the N:P the heat alone does not bleach the coral. We see coral bleaching in all areas where agricultural sits above the wetlands and the runoff runs into the wetlands and then over the reefs. It's funny how Australia's wetlands and Florida's everglades are so similar, and sitting right above both of them is large sugar farms using tons of fertilizer pumping tons of N:P into the wetlands and then out and over the reef.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#383
post #375
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on some rough napkin calculations, the caloric efficiency by land of broccoli is about the same as industrial meat. Optimizing diet for land efficiency probably does not produce healthy diets. You can find strong evidence for this trade-off in the changes of average human health at the advent of agriculture.

Not this again, why is it always broccoli that gets brought up in this argument? Nobody is eating kgs broccoli per day to get their calories. Compare industrial meat with beans or rice.

The point is that, as a source of calories, many vegetables are about as inefficient by land as industrial meat. Optimizing calories per unit land is an implicit or explicit goal of many of the comments throughout this thread. I think this is a poor optimization target and there are much better arguments against meat consumption that aren't also applicable to broccoli.

I chose broccoli because it is my favorite vegetable and I eat quite a lot of it.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#384
Ian Urbina, investigative reporter, has written a book and published articles describing a fleet of 800 industrial fish boats from china who are illegally poaching catch from North Korea waters ... fallout is a devastating drop in squid partly due to these chinese boats catching squid as they migrate to their spawning grounds ( caught before they breed ) which is extremely short sighted and illegal ... also hundreds of ghost fishing boats from North Korea washing up on Japanese shores with dead crew ... I suggest you read up on Ian Urbina's work

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#385
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people aren't voting because they feel their vote doesn't count. I'm not a US citizen, but my wife is. She usually doesn't vote or only votes because I talk her into it. Her reasoning is that our state will be carried by a democrat anyways. It doesn't matter if they win by 51% or 100%. Between electoral college and first-past-the-post it's no wonder few people vote.

That is sad beyond words and is the cause of the current state of things. It's probably how a lot of democrats think in red states.

Well, this is a very liberal in a very blue state

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I forgot to mention one other weird thing: this isn't just liberals. There is a frightening large contingency of white supremacists who are into this, and a few showed up at Portland farmers market until they were outed. Regardless of how you feel about having racist nationalists selling next to hippies, self-sufficiency is quite a thing up here.

This non-american finds it amusing that the only two categories of people in Portland are liberals and white supremacists.

Hah! No, it's not. I was playing on stereotypes. There is a stereotype that local farmers-markets are for "liberal hippie" people (see: the television sitcom "Portlandia").

Based on my travels to other countries, local farmers markets are simply called "markets" and there is nothing unusual about them. In the USA, small local markets and co-ops are a fringe thing because we are fed almost entirely by industrial farming through vast supply chains that terminate at enormous multi-purpose grocery stores.

I may have a few facts wrong, but this consolidation started after WWII, and local food co-ops were considered liberal operations because it was "liberal hippies" who were opposed to the industrialization of food.

Seeing extremely far right subsets embracing what has generally been considered far left behavior is just amusing.

Hope this clarifies!

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though we could feed many more people with current farming capacity if we ate all the corn we grow ourself instead of feeding it to cows that we eat. Meat production is incredibly inefficient. If we eventually manage to produce most of our meat demand from lab-grown meat this will likely free up enormous amounts of agriculture capacity.

In what world is lab-grown meat production more efficient than cattle farming?

Hard to say now if it will actually be MORE efficient or environmentally friendly, but initial indications once price parity is achieved would lean to YES. In terms of timeline, reports show at least 5 years before it can hit the grocery stores and that doesn't take into account the regulation. Here is a good resource that shows the process, companies making it, etc. https://cellbasedtech.com/lab-grown-meat

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#388
post #383
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not this again, why is it always broccoli that gets brought up in this argument? Nobody is eating kgs broccoli per day to get their calories. Compare industrial meat with beans or rice.

The point is that, as a source of calories, many vegetables are about as inefficient by land as industrial meat. Optimizing calories per unit land is an implicit or explicit goal of many of the comments throughout this thread. I think this is a poor optimization target and there are much better arguments against meat consumption that aren't also applicable to broccoli. I chose broccoli because it is my favorite veget…

Fair point! it was a bit of knee jerk reaction on my part as a previous thread I'd read on HN about climate an animal agriculture had the exact same broccoli point.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#389
post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got to see Alton Brown talk about sustainable seafood there! His message was pretty much "Eat calamari, eat it a lot."

Which sucks, because it is one of the few seafood's that I actually dislike. I don't like certain oily fish, and I don't like calamari other than that I like pretty much every seafood. I spearfish where I live which I like because I can only take what I am going to eat, I don't injure any other fish like pole and net fishing does and everything I take is of legal size. It allows me to be more selective of what I take…

I'm jealous, I'd love to go spearfishing :)

I personally enjoy calamari, but it definitely doesn't hit the spot for bony fish / shell fish cravings. And it is missing the omega-3's of oily fish. :(

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#390

If you're interested in adjusting your seafood eating habits towards eating more sustainable seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a guide on which seafood (based on species and location/method of catch) is most sustainable, somewhat sustainable, and not sustainable. My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up and put in your wallet: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recom…

I got to see Alton Brown talk about sustainable seafood there! His message was pretty much "Eat calamari, eat it a lot."

IIRC, to paraphrase the reasoning: "they're overpopulated, their caught in not-too-damaging ways, they're healthy if you don't fry them, and they would totally eat you given the chance."

That was a great time, thanks for coming with us!

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